The wedding season has begun! What do the latest marriage statistics reveal?

Marriages

• 6,504 couples married in 2023. This is 696 fewer than in 2022. 

• The average age at first marriage is similar to the previous trend – 33.7 years for men and 31.4 years for women. 

• The share of people under 30 getting married is decreasing. In 1993, 60% of newlyweds were under 30 years of age, whereas in 2023, one in four (24%) men and one in three (34.5%) women getting married were under 30.

• The highest number of marriages was registered on Friday 7 July, when 104 couples got married.

• In 1993, only 16% of couples had a child together at the time of marriage. Now, at the time of marriage, 30% of couples have at least one child together. 

• Estonian women (521) were somewhat more likely to marry a partner of another ethnic nationality than Estonian men were (461).

• In 70% of marriages (4,563), one of the spouses was of Estonian ethnic nationality. 

• Last year, 11% of all marriages (726 in total) took place abroad. In half of the marriages registered abroad, at least one of the partners was a citizen of Estonia. 

• The number of marriages between Estonian citizens abroad in 2023 was 41.

• Ethnic Estonians most often married other Estonians (3,401 marriages). In 1,949 couples, at least one of the partners was of Russian ethnic nationality. There were 465 couples where one of the partners was Ukrainian. 

• Since 1 January 2024, same-sex couples are allowed to marry in Estonia. According to preliminary data, a total of 93 same-sex marriages have been registered in the first five months of this year, of which 64 are between women and 29 between men.

Divorces (and remarriages)

• 2,648 marriages were divorced in 2023. The number of divorces remained below 3,000 for the fifth consecutive year.

• One in three people who get married have been married before. 

• Just over half of the remarrying people wed a partner for whom it is not their first marriage either.

• The average age of a remarried man is 45.2 and the average age of a remarried woman is 41.5 years.

• 56% of divorcing couples have minor children together.

• There were 89 divorces of marriages lasting less than a year.

• The average marriage that ended in divorce in 2023 lasted 11 years and 11 months, while the median duration of a marriage stood at 8 years. The average is affected by some very long marriages: seven marriages of 50 years or more were divorced. 

• 5,630 marriages were registered in 2013. By the end of 2023, around a quarter of these – 1,395 – had ended in divorce.

How old are Estonian residents when they marry? See the marriages application.

More detailed data have been published in the statistical database.

See also the section on marriages and divorces.

When using Statistics Estonia’s data and graphs, please indicate the source.

For further information:

Heidi Kukk
Media Relations Manager
Marketing and Dissemination Department
Statistics Estonia
Tel +372 625 9181
press [at] stat.ee (press[at]stat[dot]ee) 

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